Jiminy! West overrun by Mormon crickets

HORSESHOE BEND, Idaho — The electronic sign flashes at motorists speeding through the hills on their way to raft, kayak or fish in the river running through the green valley below.

"Crickets on Highway. Slick Road," it warns.

There they are, climbing up the guardrail and spilling onto the road--thousands of dark red Mormon crickets, resembling giant grasshoppers. Behind them, the hills are swarming with hordes, more than anyone could possibly count.

This is one of nature's cruel surprises in the sea of sagebrush that stretches across southern Idaho, northern Nevada and Utah: infestations of ravenous Mormon crickets, which march in armies up to 100,000 strong, eating virtually everything they find that has moisture content, including each other.

Experts say the swarms are the worst since at least World War II, maybe even since the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, because of a dry spring and several unseasonably warm winters.

About 6 million acres in Utah are affected, double last year's amount. Nevada's entomologist guesses that more than 5 million acres are cricket-ridden, a doubling for that state as well.

Idaho is experiencing its worst outbreak in more than 50 years, officials say. Pockets of California, Nebraska, Washington and Wyoming also have plague-like levels.

Asked how many Mormon crickets this adds up to, Jeffrey Knight, Nevada's top bug expert, figures there could be more than 20,000 per acre in infested areas.

"Do the math," he says. "It's incomprehensible."

Mormon cricket infestations typically last five to seven years but have been known to stretch to 21 years, experts say.

Besides the sheer nuisance factor--it is considerable--there are serious consequences.

Farmers struggling to make ends meet during a prolonged drought find their corn, wheat, barley and alfalfa fields at risk of being the insects' lunch. Ranchers won't have hay or grass to feed their cattle if the bugs get into their fields.

"Our local farmers and ranchers are deathly afraid of what could happen," said Brian Davies, mayor of Horseshoe Bend, population 770, a former timber town that depends on agriculture and tourism.

On the highways, if a horde gets hit by cars, oily carcasses can create a hazard "slicker than black ice," according to Fawn Carey, Boise County disaster services coordinator.

Two weeks ago, in these foothills just outside Boise, a two-mile stretch of highway was overrun by the bugs, leaving a mess. Soon after, Boise County declared a cricket disaster, allowing it to use state and federal funds for its battle of the bugs.

Then, there are the problems that face businesses on the south side of Elko, a city of 17,000 in northeastern Nevada.

Mormon cricket hordes descended last week on a 10-building business park owned by Medea Snyder. They crawled through parking lots and chewed through landscaping.

Business plummeted as customers looked out their car windows and drove off, she said. The chiropractor next door to Snyder's office has closed until the Mormon crickets leave. Little girls are screaming when their mothers pull up to the dance studio and are refusing to get out of their cars, Snyder said.

The Mormon crickets "have this horrible smell, kind of like formaldehyde. And when the cars run over them--pop, pop, pop--the sound is unbelievable," she said.

Linda Beller, who works at Elko Garden & Landscape, is spraying insecticides around her yard in the morning and hopes there's something green when she returns home at night.

"My neighbor's lawn, it looked alive this morning; it was just covered," she said with a sigh. Some dogs like to chase the bugs, but Beller's cat, Shortfork, is "hiding under the house" most of the time.

To the west, about 20 miles north of Reno, the residents of Red Rock Estates know all about the creepiness these hopping, nearly 2 1/2-inch-long, cannibalistic insects inspire.

Last year was the first year these homeowners encountered the bugs in a big way. Dale Hildebrandt watched as her 3,000-square-foot garden was decimated. This year, Hildebrandt helped organize homeowners to buy $18,000 worth of bait to kill the bugs.

"You kind of get a sadistic attitude toward them after a while; all you want to do is kill," she said.

How insect got its name

The crickets get their name from Mormon settlers, who watched in dismay as the bugs began to chomp through their crops in the spring of 1848, soon after the pioneers settled permanently in Utah. Clubbing the insects didn't work, neither did trying to burn or drown them.

Then, what the Mormons refer to as a miracle occurred. Seagulls swooped down from the Great Salt Lake and gorged on the crickets, saving the settlers' food supply, according to an account provided by the church. To this day, it is against the law in Utah to harm a seagull, the state bird.